


Never Enough Time

by wonderlandiscrumbling



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confession, M/M, Romance, alt universe, loosely based on a manga that I was reading, season 3 based, slight fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 09:52:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14282361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderlandiscrumbling/pseuds/wonderlandiscrumbling
Summary: Oswald found years ago that he has the ability to freeze time. It's an ability he has always used for the most selfish of reasons, but not as selfish as using it to stall confessing his feelings to the man he's found himself falling in love with.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Today I read a manga called Fragtime about a teenage girl who can freeze time for 5 minutes a day. I highly recommend the manga honestly, this is loosely based around the time stopping theme.

Oswald’s ability was one he’d gained sometime in his teen years. An ability to freeze time, everything in the world coming to a halting stop while he moved about freely. A gift whose power he frequently abused as often as he was able to. He’d first noticed his ability when he’d been in his early teen years, a time when he had been working on building his less than legal skills. Frequently after school and on the weekends while his mother worked he would go into town, go to the markets and into bars where he would pickpocket unsuspecting fools. Unfortunately for him one evening he picked the wrong target. A man who towered over him, one who seemed more than willing to break the fingers of a young thief. Fear had shot through Oswald the second the man had grabbed his wrist, his grip tight enough to leave dark bruises for days to come. He recalled closing his eyes and yelling for him to stop, yelling until his throat felt raw. He’d been amazed to open his eyes and see the man had stopped, in fact everybody had stopped.

He’d been so confused and startled that he’d panicked. He’d managed to free himself from his attacker’s grip, his plans of robbing the man all but forgotten as he’d run home scared to death that he was dying. He’d gone up to his apartment, locked himself in his mother’s room and stayed there until she’d come home later that night. 

It had taken him a few tries to realize somethings. Firstly, he realized it was only temporary, time didn’t freeze forever, and it didn’t unfreeze on command. Once he’d realized that the world wasn’t doomed, that he wasn’t going to be stuck in a world of human mannequins he’d calmed down. After that he’d begun testing other things, testing if certain triggers might cause people to move or to react, if tickling somebody’s nose with a feather would cause them to sneeze or if holding a lit match against their hand would cause them to howl in pain. He’d found nothing triggered a reaction, skin burned, but yet no tears and no screaming, not until time picked up again of course. Now the amount of time he had before the world began turning again was a bit more complicated. Initially he had ten minutes, those ten minutes for him as a teenage boy were wasted on foolish things. Many times he’d taken that time to go to the liquor store near his apartment, he’d bring along his backpack and throw in bottles of wine and bourbon he could never imagine himself being able to afford. He’d go to the nicer parts of the city and steal the diamond necklaces and earrings from the girls and women, the Rolex watches from the men along with their bulky golden rings. Other times he used his power to win fights, to get revenge on his bullies. He’d take the baseball bat his mother kept by the door and would beat them half to death while they could do nothing, he’d hide nearby and laugh at them when time started back up, watching them cough and cry in agonizing pain.

Yes, he had wasted precious time as a teenager. It took him awhile to notice that he was losing time, somewhere in his twenties he realized that ten minutes became eight minutes then eight became five. There were times dependent upon his mood and the circumstances where time could freeze for longer or shorter and sometimes it wouldn’t freeze at all. He realized the hard way that an ability that should keep him from befalling pain and heartache only kept it from occurring when he could see it coming. Unfortunately for him he wasn’t psychic.

The night his mother had gotten killed, he had hated himself. He should have frozen time, he should have frozen time the moment he’d stepped into that building, but he’d been so damned sure of himself. He’d been certain that he could get her back, that she could be safe. He should have known the way things would turn out, but he’d been too self-assured, too stupid to realize there could be consequences to such idiotic decisions. 

He found as time passed that he only used his ability for the things that didn’t matter in the long run. For the longest time he gave up on using his ability all together, pushed himself into denial of it even existing. He wasn’t the type of man who was meant to have an extraordinary ability, he misused and abused it, never saving the lives of those who truly mattered to him.

It was nice pretending he wasn’t special, pretending there was nothing unique about him. He felt as normal as he could possibly be during the months of pretending he had no ability to stop time.

That was until it happened, until that feeling hit him like a truck. That night on the couch by the fireplace, hugging Ed, feeling the warmth of his body, knowing that this man had so easily and willingly risked his own life just for him, just for his image. He thought how he wished the moment could last forever, wished he never had to stop hugging him. 

That’s all it had taken really. It had startled him just like the very first time all those years ago when he’d been a boy, it only lasted for two minutes. Two minutes at that moment had felt like long enough though, long enough to truly admire and appreciate the man holding him, the man he now found himself hopelessly in love with. 

Unfortunately, he’d soon found out that just those two minutes wouldn’t be enough for him.


	2. Chapter 2

Honestly, Oswald had every intention of telling Ed that he was in love with him. The morning after he’d prepared speech after speech in front of the full-length mirror in his bedroom, had planned on every which possible way he could confess his feelings for him without coming across as pathetic or creepy. As he looked at himself in the mirror he noticed more and more flaws about himself, he grew nervous that Ed would laugh at him or be disgusted that he thought he could ever be with somebody like him. 

He didn’t know what he was thinking. Ed was his friend and that was it, he knew he should be grateful for that alone. He’d never had a true friend, somebody who was willing to go out of their way and do anything for him. He’d never had somebody look at him the way Ed looked at him.

Knocking on his bedroom door startled him. “Oswald, are you about ready?”

He closed his eyes taking a deep breath. 

“Could you come in here for a moment, I need to ask you something.” He called back working to keep his voice from cracking.

His palms felt sweaty, he nervously picked at his cuticles. He tried to force himself to calm as the door opened and Ed cautiously entered the room as if fearing he might be intruding despite being requested to enter. 

“What did you want to ask me?” He asked curiously.

“Well it’s more, there’s something, something I feel I should tell you actually. I, last night what you did for me-“ He closed his eyes, he let out a shaky breath. He could feel a stillness in the air, he smiled to himself realizing he’d just bought himself time.

When he opened his eyes again Ed was standing there still looking at him. Oswald felt guilty freezing time on him for a second time, two days in a row like this. He stepped towards him standing as close as he would allow himself to, he reached out to touch his hand, fingers brushing against the back of his hand. 

“You risked your life for me, you didn’t have to do that.” He smiled softly as he cautiously reached up to touch his neck. He traced his fingers over the bruises careful not to hurt him. A perfect morbid collar around his neck, hideous shades of purple and yellow, but somehow quite beautiful. “That looks so painful, it was truly foolish and selfless what you did for me.” He brought his hand to rest against his cheek, daring to step closer to him.

In all his time freezing people he’d never cared to properly look at them. They’d always just been mannequins made of flesh and blood, things he’d steal from or hit over the head with a metal baseball bat, but this was different. This wasn’t a mannequin, this was Ed, this was the man he was falling so hopelessly in love with. 

“I just want to tell you that I love you, but I’m too much of a coward to confess it.”

He leaned up to press a quick kiss against his cheek before leaving the room. He knew he had a few minutes left until time started up again, long enough to pour himself a drink to calm his nerves. He still had the rest of the day to tell him.


End file.
